


An Empty Hand, Waiting

by glasscamellias



Category: MOTHER: Cognitive Dissonance
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Stream of Consciousness, Touch-Starved, could be platonic or not, endgame spoilers, hair styling, time to fill up this tag with weird headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 15:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13814487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasscamellias/pseuds/glasscamellias
Summary: Some days are lonelier than others, and distractions only go so far. It'd be easier if Niiue could stop thinking about his shipmates.





	An Empty Hand, Waiting

This whole thing would have been easier with a mirror.

Well, it would have been easier with a lot of things. A hair tie instead of a ribbon—it was great for his stats and he knew this was how some people wore it, but it kept slipping out of his hands. He’d seen the Colonel with a whole collection of bows that might be easier to work with, but he doubted he’d be allowed to borrow one; Colonel Saturn was possessive over his bows. A brush that worked for more than just fine fur. Some privacy, so that everyone else on the tiny ship wouldn’t start whispering about what the spacey Commander was doing by himself in the corner.

No mirrors on the ship, and Niiue had thought he had found a solution by parking himself in front of a hyberpod; the metal was dull but kind of reflective? Until he realized he couldn’t see the back of his head, where most of the action was happening.

It was a stupid impulse, but after his visit to Earth and that psionic newborn, he couldn’t help it. He hadn’t helped glancing from one human to the next as he headed down the street, and that had planted an idea that wouldn’t budge, weeks later. He had all this hair, couldn’t he do something with it? At the time, he hadn’t thought about supplies or instructions; he thought those styles couldn’t possibly be hard. Mama had done them all the time, and it had seemed effortless through the eyes of a child.

So here he was, hat off and safely in his lap, trying in vain to see himself in the reflection of a hyberpod and failing utterly at hair. If he had been practiced at it, maybe he could have closed his eyes and pretended that someone else was styling it for him? It would’ve been weird to stroke his own hair in front of people, but he _really_ wanted to. Maybe this whole thing was a distraction so he would stop staring at his crew for hours, barely remembering to be subtle.

It should’ve been nice. Convenient that his chosen heroes were getting along well, becoming friends; none of them would back out or abandon each other. But they were getting along better than well.

They had made it into a routine in the times when there was nothing to do but wait for the ship to inch its way to the next planet. There wasn’t much to do other than sleeping or talking, so they went for the latter. And that could have been normal, except they did it stacked in a pile. Larice on the bottom, sitting against the wall with Alinivar draped across his chest. He seemed unbothered by those tendrils leaving faint smears of goo on his metal body. Colonel Saturn leaned against his hip, maintaining contact while having free space on the floor to clean his guns. Zarbol had gone from parking his ship on Larice’s shoulder or head (careful around his new spikes) to leaving it entirely, unafraid that these much larger creatures could squish him accidentally.

How could it be that easy? All four of them were outcasts to some degree or another, and from what he knew about them, it should have been awkward or unfamiliar to touch other people. Not that he knew all that much—he was their enigmatic, distant Commander. To be kept at arm’s length and definitely not showered with stories about their personal lives. It would have been absurd to cross the ship and go over to join. Absurd to be jealous.

(People didn’t touch him. Yeah, maybe someone might brush his shoulder in passing, but not much more than that. And to touch other people, rather than to be touched...Wasn’t that an abuse of power? It was enough for him to miss Giegue’s kitten-weak slaps and scratches.)

Ponytails weren’t so hard, but he kept leaving strands free, no matter how many times he tried to gather everything up. It might have even been a good idea in battle to keep it out of his face, especially if it got much longer. But the ribbon kept unraveling. There was probably some string laying around that would be easier to work with, but what about the stat boosts?? A goog needed all the help they could get in this crazy world, right? It worked a little better if he abandoned hopes of elegant bows and just knotted it in place, but... It didn’t look great, and it left a spray of loose blond hair around his neck.

But ponytails were basic, unexciting. The whole point of this was to experiment! (Even if he hadn’t mastered the most basic style...) He untied the ribbon, wincing at how his attempts had rumpled it, and tried gathering everything into a bun. The ribbon again was posing a problem, refusing to hold it in place. When it finally worked for more than a few seconds, it looked squished. Tufts of hair sticking out of the ball, the whole thing threatening to slip when he turned his head.

Now Larice was petting Alinivar’s eye stalk while the other three gathered together to talk quietly. Writing a song they wouldn’t have the opportunity to play, now that they were on a quest.

He needed to focus.

Braiding was the fancy thing, wasn’t it? He must have seen Mama do it a thousand times, and now with his hands full of hair...he had no idea _how._ She had always done it so quickly, and he had usually watched her face instead, waiting for her hands to be free so that she would pick him up. Obviously from the name, it was something like braiding wires together, right? Maybe a pro could have braided it from behind without looking, but he tried his best to pull it over his shoulder and into view, though it wasn’t really long enough for that.

Again, the lack of a brush probably didn’t help. It usually didn’t matter if it was a little tangled; who was going to see it with the hat on? Sometimes when he had nothing to do at the monitors, he might fix some knots with his fingers, but it was hard to make it a priority. It was fine, right? He could totally braid like this, right?

He was supposed to move around sections of it, that was obvious, but in what order? How was he supposed to keep the sections from blurring into each other, strands escaping? Why was his hair so slippery? Plus the other people in the ship were watching him with more and more curiosity, so he couldn’t help speeding up, hopefully to look like he knew what was doing, when he knew less and less what he was doing and settled for whatever felt right.

It didn’t take long for him to get the end, using that mangled ribbon again to tie it off, and... It could be considered a braid if you were using the term very generously. But it was his first try, he could have another attempt and it would be better the second time! He untied the ribbon, reached up to separate the sections of hair...and found them too knotted to split up. He had ruined it.

Was he going to need to cut the whole thing out? Trying to finger-comb it hurt more than it helped, and he couldn’t help hunching over, hoping no one had noticed. What would they know anyway? None of them had hair, so it wasn’t like it was obviously a disaster to anyone but him. If he had kept his expression controlled, maybe it would have looked intentional.

Niiue really didn’t manage to keep his expression controlled as he tried to ease his fingers into the knots, to see if they would unravel. He could hear the tiny noises of hair snapping as he worked at it, feeling despair set in. Hair grew back (as far as he knew—Papa had only lost more over time, so who could say?), but how much of it would he have to cut? Enough that he wouldn’t be able to see it underneath his hat? The only resemblance he shared with his mother, gone just like that.

“Commander?” He had been so focused on it that he hadn’t noticed Larice approaching, Alinivar having slid off him to follow behind.

“Something I can help you two with?” It would have been too obvious to snatch his hands away, but he tried to look casual about it, grinning up at Larice. No tears here, definitely not over something so silly!

“You seemed distressed, I was just wondering if something was wrong.” That couldn’t be right. He had his back turned and everything, so if he had let something slip on his face, they wouldn’t have noticed, even if they hadn’t been focused on each other.

Alinivar moved over to his side, peering down at the floor and all the strands of hair he had torn out so far. “Um...is your....fur okay? That looks kind of painful.”

He could lie to them. What’s one more lie on top of the pile, anyway? “I’m trying out a new style, not much else to do right now. Do you like it?” If he moved just a few inches, he could press his hand against Alinivar’s tentacle, and once he realized it, it was hard to think of anything else. A single touch wouldn’t be enough for him. It would only open the floodgates for wanting more, and poor Alin didn’t need that pressure. None of them did.

Maybe Alinivar had just happened to see someone with braided hair on his brief trip to Earth, because he stared at Niiue for longer than was probably polite. If it looked awful even to him, then... “It’s. Very different?”

He started to pull at it again, only for Larice to shake his head. “Sir, you’re clearly going to do more damage if you use that much force.” He must have been hesitant to do so to his supposed superior officer, but he very lightly touched the matted hair with his hand. Without any proper fingers, he wouldn’t have any easier of a time untangling it, if that was his intent. It couldn’t be his intent.

“I could try to help if you wanted?” But then _Alinivar_ reached out to help, which logically made sense: his tentacles were more dexterous than Larice’s hands. They had to be, to play guitar as well as he could, and it seemed untangling hair was within his abilities too. But...

( _Alinivar was touching him, someone was touching him, his tendrils were so gentle_ —)

“I mean, maybe some of it can’t be salvaged at this point? I have no idea how it got this messy.” He should have been telling him to stop, insisting that he could neaten it up on his own. Not wanting to shove his head closer in the hopes that Alinivar might pet his ears. He managed to work some of it free, which only emphasized how bad the rest was, knotted so tightly that it would surely snap. Just to prove his point, a small lock of hair Alinivar had been cautiously tugging at broke, and he squeaked, pulling his tentacle back and letting it fall to the floor.

He looked devastated at the idea of having harmed him, guilt and panic getting loud enough for telepathy to pick up on, so Niiue had to cut him off. He wasn’t going to kick Alinivar out of the quest or anything, and definitely not over something so trivial. It kind of hurt that he would still think that, after all they had been through so far. “Don’t worry about it, alright? Look, it’s a lot better than when you started, and I can cut the rest out.” It’d be uneven, but a little less dire than he had expected.

“Do we need to get you a brush, Commander? I’m sure some marketplace in the Universe has to have one.” Out of all people, shouldn’t it have been Larice to care the least about him? He might have saved Larice from the ship, but that didn’t make up for all the other cruelties that Niiue’s species had done to him. “It can’t possibly be that expensive.”

“You think so?” Now Colonel Saturn was waddling past, over to the vendor on the other side of the ship. After a brief conversation (“Want sharp thingy, boing!”) he came back with a pocket knife levitating out in front of him, presenting it to Niiue. Apparently he couldn’t stand for all the waffling about cutting hair or not, so he decided to make it happen.

(“If you two are cousins, why does he still make you pay?” Zarbol asked, landing on Larice and flicking his wings. “Not even a discount.”

“Capitalism. Inescape,” Colonel Saturn said somberly. “Family is second.”)

The knife was a bit dull, but he tried to cut carefully and only get the worst of it, to see if the rest could be untangled. It would look patchy for a while, but not as bad as it could have been. He swept up the little pile of hair and carried it over to the ship’s incinerator.

And when he came back to his spot...The four of them had resumed their pile without moving back to their corner. His hat was right there, so it’d look weird to grab it and move somewhere else, right? Even if it was by coincidence, they had included him.

Being in their little circle wasn’t the same as being in their conversation, back to music. Wouldn’t it have been weird to bring up singing to an instrumental group? But one of Alinivar’s lower tentacles brushed against his tail, Larice’s leg inches from his own, and...it was amazing.

He couldn’t stop shivering, his hands shaking as he ran them through his hair, trying not to tug too hard.

**Author's Note:**

> There was an embarrassing amount of time spent wishing there were more CogDis fics before I realized I could write some myself. So I guess it's time for weird headcanons that I'm not sure I'm committed to? I'm a little unsure about going straight to 'Applechasers are all poly,' so 'Niiue and Giegue are terrible at self-care and touch-starved' is a slightly easier start. ('Niiue is hypersexual' is possibly the most intimidating on the list.) 
> 
> Am I free to write whatever nonsense because there's so few people in this fandom, or is there more pressure on me since there's barely any other fics? I don't even know if this is a 1/? or finished, I'm very unsure of how a continuation would come across. Honestly I'm unsure about ALL of this, but I might as well try.


End file.
